DMX Says Iyanla Didn’t “Fix” His Life, She Made It Worse

Rapper DMX appeared on the highly-anticipated season premiere of Iyanla Vanzant‘s hit OWN show ‘Fix My Life’ this weekend. During the explosive 90-minute intervention, we saw a man who is dealing with an extreme amount of pain, anger and aggression — he even yelled “shut the f**k up” to show host Iyanla and told his oldest son Xavier “I’ll see you at my funeral.”

Now that the hard-to-watch episode has aired, DMX’s camp has released a statement saying the network never had permission to use the footage and Iyanla focused on the wrong topics.

“DMX agreed to be a guest on ‘Iyanla: Fix My Life’ with the understanding that she would be helping his relationships with his 10 children,” the statement says. “When he arrived for the taping, most of the content was focused on his struggles with drugs and poor parenting. Iyanla did not ‘fix’ DMX’s life just made his image worse, and does not have DMX’s personal written consent to use the footage.”

Really?!

To the contrary, in a recent interview with ESSENCE.com, Iyanla said the rapper’s ex-wife Tashera Simmons actually encouraged him to do the show. She also added that he initially agreed to discuss everything in his life.

His ex-wife wrote in and asked if we would be able to support him. And then he agreed that he needed some support and would do the show. The biggest difficulty was just his capacity to be vulnerable and to speak honestly about what was going on with him.

I don’t think that he went wrong. All of us have ways in which we mask and cover our pain. This is a man who is in a tremendous amount of pain. Some of us eat; some of us shop or eat chocolate. What he is doing is a less socially acceptable way to mask and cover his pain because he doesn’t have the skills and the tools to deal with it otherwise. So I don’t think he went wrong, it’s just a defense mechanism.

The statement from DMX’s camp completely ignores his obvious mental illness and goes on to promote his upcoming music project.

“What the team does want DMX’s fans to know is that he is working on a new album that will include Swizz Beatz and we hope to also work with Timbaland, Dr. Dre, and Kanye West,” it reads.

Check out a few highlights from the interview below and tell us what you think.